Art

I could not resist posting this atmospheric photo taken by Nick when he stayed at my bed and breakfast a few weeks ago with his wife Jo.
There are many times when we hear the most interesting and often useful things from our guests. This time Nick and Jo recommended the Eric Ravillious exhibition at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. I went along and enjoyed it enormously. Highly recommended and I must say a lot more relaxing than the crowded art exhibitions in London!

Set up by Alderman John Towner in 1923. He donated 22 paintings and the sum of £6,000.00 for the establishment of an art gallery.

The collection today has some 4,000 art objects. “Pictures of Sussex” has the policy of exhibiting its temporary exhibits alongside the permanent collection.

Art donations have been made by Walter Sickert, Picasso, Henry Moore and many more.

Currently the exhibitions are the art of Erik Ravilious (who actually studied and taught at the Eastbourne College of Art).

“Towards Night” There are many paintings on this theme including ones by artists Constable, Munch and Turner. The pictures represent an emotional response to the feelings of awe, anxiety and solitude, love and loss, insomnia and journey’s end.

God gave all men all earth to love,
But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation’s birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,
As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove’s droned lament
Before Levuka’s Trade.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground – in a fair ground –
Yea, Sussex by the sea!

Clean of officious fence or hedge,
Half wild and wholly tame,
The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge
As when the Romans came.
What sign of those that fought and died
At shift of sword and sword?
The barrow and the camp abide,
The sunlight and the sward.

Here leaps ashore the full Sou’west
All Heavy-winged with brine,
Here lies above the folded crest
The Channel’s leaden line;
And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,
And here, each morning each,
The sheep-bells ad the ship-bells ring
Along the hidden beach.

We have not waters to delight
Our broad and brooklets vales –
Only the dewpond on the height
Unfed, that never fails –
Whereby no tattered herbage tells
Which way the season flies –
Only our close-bit thyme that smells
Like dawn in paradise.

Here, through the strong and shadeless days
The tinkling silence thrills;
Or little, lost, Down churches praise
The Lord who made the hills:
But here the Old Gods guard their round,
And, in her secret heart,
The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found
dreams, as she dwells, apart.

Though all the rest were all my share,
With equal soul I’d see
Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,
Yet none more fair than she.
Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie ‘twixt Rake and Rye,
Black Down and Beachy Head.

I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilimington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.

I will go north about the shows
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s
Beguiled dolphin veers
And red beside wide-banked Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.

So to the land our hearts we give
Till the sure magic strike,
And memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike –
That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason’s sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.

God gives all men all earth to love,But since man’s heart is small,Ordains for each one spot shall proveBeloved over all.Each to his choice, and I rejoiceThe lot has fallen to meIn a fair ground – in a fair ground-Yea, Sussex by the sea!